Lian-Li PC-A17 Pics n stuff

PhillyDee · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:32

I have today, received this very case. It is unpacked, and photos taken. Here are some images.
The case itself is pretty much 100% aluminium. The top door is, not sure on the buttons. It all fits together perfectly, and looks the business. The hard drive cage is located on the bottom, and can be moved about anywhere. It uses rubber grommits to isolate the drive, and looks as if it uses a sort of clip in system for the drives. I quickly plugged in a fan to my current set-up and it seemed quiet, but made a clicking noise. Ill look into that later.

Woo! Boxiness!

Well packed. Foam and plastic goodness.

Top door shown. It is also made from Brushed Aluminium, and doesnt click shut, just lifts up. Fits perfectly again. Contains Firewire, E-Sata (No power though), 1 x Speakers, 1 x Mic, and 4xUSB

Front and Back. Notice the water cooling holes, made from a flexible plastic.

The top and back 120mm fan both have grilles on them, stops it chomping your cables. All fans are 3-pin and come with a molex adapter attatched.

Full side view, plenty of length on all the cables. All the back blanking plates are seperate, no snappy-offy ones, and are vented. You can see the hard drive case in situ.

Back of the motherboard tray view. 2x clips provided to tidy all the cables. Saves using Gaffa tape.

Once i strip my current PC out of the 900, ill provide some temperature comparisons with the dust sucker and the new case. Biggest difference is there is no side window. I might look into getting one in the future.

PhillyDee · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:32

The Build:

First, a case size comparison between the Antec 900, and the PC-A17

Both case are virtually the same size, with the 900 sticking out just that little bit higher. Due to the shape though, the 900 appears smaller when on my desktop.

What is going into the new case. (Same as the old case really!)
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Rev 3.3, E6600 O/C:3.4Ghz (425x8.0), Tuniq Tower 120 with Coolink SWiF 120MM silent fan, 2x2gb OCZ PC6400 RAM (O/C:850Mhz), Corsair 620HX, Gainward 8800GTS 640Mb, 2x Samsung Lightscribe SATA DVD-RW, 150Gb Raptor. Not shown, or delivered: Lian-Li card reader.

Pick up one screw, push on rubber grommit, screw into drive hole, repeat 3 times, slide drive into hard drive bay, and viola, one hard drive mounted in rubber washers. If you plan to move the case, then you can use the 2 middle screws to secure the drive into the bay. You cant mount the hard drive the other way around due to this method of mounting unlike the 900.

Attatch PSU bracket to PSU and set aside.

Remove motherboard tray from case, attatch risers using the tool very kindly provided in the box, and screw on motherboard. There is a helluve lot of holes on that tray. Im guessing for pretty much every layout you can get.

Install hard drive mounting cage.

1. Install motherboard tray with motherboard attatched into case, and attatch cables. This was a PITA due to the size of the Tuniq tower. It was very difficult, and i had to loosen the fan out of the tuniq to get it to fit. It was very very close.
2. Swear and curse, as I, again, forgot to put the I/O plate into the case first. As is normal.

Plug in the graphics card, remembering to plug in the power connector (Made THAT mistake in the past!)(More than once). Looks like i will have to get longer sata data cables to tidy it up, since they will not route round the back of the tray.

PhillyDee · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:33

A Comparison Between the 900 and PC-A17. Cooling.

The cases are quite similar, but cooling is quite different.
The 900, has 1x rear fan, PSU on the bottom, mounted upside down. 2 x front 120mm fans and 1 x 200mm fan on the top. The cooling pressure on this case is obviously negative, but not by much. The PC-A17 has a top 140mm fan, 1 x rear 120mm fan, the PSU mounted on the top the correct way around, and 1 x front 120mm fan. The amount of fans exhausting air is quite high, and I believe that the top fan is pretty much useless as the PSU is mounted above the HSF on the motherboard anyway. Though I have no doubt that its better placed to cool the ram.

Here are some screenies i took both idle and load (After approx 1 hour prime).

The 900
Idle and Load

The PC-A17

You can see the temp differences which I think are mainly due to the air flow within the case, the 900 is more balanced with exhaust on both the bottom and the top of the case. The PC-A17 only has exhaust on the rear and top. But 10Degrees is quite a lot of difference. Maybe I will see a difference when i change the fans. I doubt it though.

In its new home

What you didnt see . . . . .

SPAGHETTI!! One gripe, there isnt enough room behind the tray for a thick ATX cable. When putting the panel on, it bulges out slightly, but since that part of the case will not be seen on my desk, im not arsed.

Conclusion:

I like this new case, being my first Lian-Li I am quite impressed by the build quality, everything fits how it should, there are plastic/metal dampeners on anything that can rattle, all the edges are either rolled over, or deburred and, it does make a change, i never cut myself once. I do have a faulty fan on the front of the case, but I have since ordered 3 new noctua fans to replace them all. The raptor is slightly quieter due to the rubber mounts, but i do miss a side panel on the case. There is a Lian-Li card reader to go in yet, and I have ordered the 5.25" -3.5" adapter. I couldnt find a mesh one anywhere, and im not even sure if you can get one. I think it should have come with one, the Antec 900 did.

PhillyDee · 10 Mar 2008 at 16:23

Im doing a PC transplant with my current gaming rig from an Antec 900 into this beautiful looking case. It will probably be done tomorrow once ive cleared a space on my workbench to do it. I intend to keep this case more than a year

. Im still waiting for the card reader and adapter to match the case however. And i do use a Tuniq.

PhillyDee · 11 Mar 2008 at 17:07

Yup, all installed and up and running. The Hard drive cage fan is clicking, sounds like it arrived broked. The fans themselves are slightly louder than the Antec 3-speed fans (that were set to silent). However, I didnt get the card reader for this case yet, so it will have to wait for some pics.

Ill update the 2nd/3rd posts later (probably around 8ish) once ive primed the pc for an hour, and fired up the laptop to plug my digi camera card in. Preliminary results says this case is around 10 Degrees hotter than the antec 900, but it does probably need an extra front fan as there is only 1x intake, and 3x exhausts.

PhillyDee · 11 Mar 2008 at 21:30

Done. Updated post 2 and 3.

Pea0n - The top fan is mounted through the top of the case, looks like 4xblack fan screws holding the fan in place. Ill find out better when i replace it. There are dividers every 3 bays, but these can easily be taken out, just 4 screws holding them in.

Deluxe1 - You can if you buy a mounting kit i guess. You are not supplied with anything to hold one in the middle bay. Think i will make myself a fan mount out of Aluminium angled bar.

PhillyDee · 14 Mar 2008 at 14:31

Heh, i like where he has stashed the hard drives! They look like half height ones to me.

Ive just installed 3x new Noctua NF-P12 fans in the case and moved the hard drive cage(with fans) to the centre. Ive just realised that the top fan is an 140MM. So i swopped out the CPU fan. Running all the fans at 900RPM gives a 5Degrees drop in temp. So thats not too bad.

PhillyDee · 16 Mar 2008 at 23:34

The system is quiet when used with the lower rpm, and theres more airflow with them.

I can measure the distance for the PSU if you like. Same for any measurements people want.

PhillyDee · 26 Mar 2008 at 19:55

Why thank you. Im going to make a fan adapter so i can bungee mod my raptor. The damn thing is resonating. Will post a how-to guide. The angle aluminium arrived today. Hopefully get a chance to make some brackets in the next 2 weeks.

PhillyDee · 30 Mar 2008 at 12:36

The fan is attatched using 4 black fan screws from the top of the case. Easy to swop If you can find one!) I will edit this post with the measurement for you sgt. pepper. Check back after hmm . . . 1900hrs.

Space between PSU bracket and top mounted fan: 185mm
So no, it will not house a galaxy. Not surprising really. But i think you can get an adapter from Lian-Li that enables you to put in a much bigger psu by extending it outside the back of the case.
I turned the fan so it was an intake, and it resonates with the fan grille. So ive ordered a different fan as it seems like it improves the temps by 5-6 degrees, putting it in the same league as the 900. Woo!

PhillyDee · 31 May 2008 at 14:17

Im now on the lookout for a spare side panel, I want to mod this . . . . No details as of yet. Keeping it under my hat.

PhillyDee · 4 Jun 2008 at 16:04

Its was a pain in the arse. I took the fan out so I could get the tray back in. And I would say yes, it IS worth the hassle

. It keeps your CPU nice and cool.

PhillyDee · 5 Jun 2008 at 07:51

Looks to me as though it will fit fine. And the fan protrudes out the bottom of the Heatsink, not the top. Its the swing of the motherboard tray that makes it a bit iffy.

PhillyDee · 7 Jul 2008 at 16:24

ChrissyT88 said:
PhillyDee - just got this case yesterday and was looking at making a fan bracket for a second fan at the front. You mentioned earlier that you were going to try and make a fan bracket from aluminium - do you have any pictures of the results that i can copy!

Heh. i got half way then decided to bungee it on . . . . Due to the way the front mesh grilles fit it would be a problem so it would need the case modded too.